Hiding Place

After drying off from my shower, I stayed in my room to get changed and dry my hair. I was not in the mood to argue with Danielle anymore about the fact that I was not going out with her and the girls tonight. Most of the time, I enjoy going out with the girls, but I wasn’t like most of them.

The girls enjoyed going drinking and dancing. On the other hand, I enjoyed having a drink and watching baseball. I was much more relaxed than they were, but it didn’t hinder our friendships. Sometimes, the girls would convince me to go out and I normally I would have a pretty good time with them. Whenever they wanted a chill evening, they usually came to me – even if they didn’t like baseball or watching a sport with me.

I could hear Danielle’s heels clicking around the hardwood in the living room and kitchen. She must be going soon so I decided it was a safe time to leave my room without her scolding me too bad about not going out with the girls.

“You look cute. Are you sure you’re not going out?” Danielle asked when she noticed that I was in the living room. Her attention was on her smaller over the shoulder clutch that was black. She was shoving the essentials into her bag. It went well with her dark purple skirt and white, almost sheer top. Several times she insisted that I should get something similar, but I didn’t go out as much as she did so I didn’t think it was necessary at this point.

I laughed sarcastically and pulled out a stool opposite to where Danielle was standing at the island. “No, I just don’t want to look like an idiot on Skype.” I wasn’t sure why I cared. Logan has seen me looking much worse than I did right now, but for some reason I wanted to look good. My hair was straightened, I put on a little bit of makeup, not too much, and I was wearing one of my favourite dark blue V-neck shirts and a pair of jean capris. It was casual and comfortable.

Danielle raised an eyebrow at me. Her hair was curled, her makeup was perfect and her favourite pair of heels – or so she told me. “Since when did you care about looking like an idiot on Skype? Is this because you’re Skyping one San Jose Shark?”

Always thinking she was a joker. “No,” I shook my head. “I just want to look decent. Not like I just rolled out of bed, you know?” Not that Logan would assume that I did, he knew about the stair workout Danielle and I did earlier today. Unfortunately, he had seen me ‘just roll out of bed’ the last time we Skyped for a game. He surprised me with a nine in the morning Skype call to watch a Blue Jays afternoon game in Toronto. “That is if he remembers that we’re watching the game. He was going out for dinner before hand…”

“Wait. He’s out for dinner? Why can’t you come with us then?” Danielle had her hand on her hip and looked at me like I better have a damn good reason as to why I can’t at least join the girls for dinner tonight.

I shook my head as I glanced at the clock. It was six-thirty; the first pitch of the game was in forty minutes. There was no time for dinner. “Well, considering he went out for dinner two hours ago, it’s entirely possible for him to do so. We can’t do dinner in forty minutes Dan.”

My stomach grumbled in response to all the dinner talk. The cheese and crackers I had earlier was not sufficient enough for my hunger. I ordered a pizza and some breadsticks earlier, which should be arriving in ten minutes. Plus I had a couple of beer in the fridge – if it got to that point where I felt the Giants play necessitated a beer.

She rolled her eyes. “One of these days you’re doing to regret not coming out with us.” Before I could respond, her gaze traveled to her phone. “Okay, the girls are here. You have fun tonight and if you can, see where you stand with the guy. You need some answers and he better have them for you.”

I nodded and told my best friend to have fun on her night out with the girls. Telling her to have fun was completely unnecessary. I knew she would have fun. Danielle always came back with excellent stories to tell from nights out in San Fran or any place for that matter. It didn’t matter where she went; she had a story to go with it. The only time I’ve ever been able to ‘beat’ one of her stories was in San Jose when I decided to have a romantic comedy moment with Logan.

The door clicked shut as Danielle left and the silence of our apartment took over. I hopped off the stool and padded over to the couch where an impatient sigh passed my lips. I was waiting for pizza and for Logan to text me. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait too long.

My phone dinged and I fished it out of my pocket. Like every time he texted me, a smile crept onto my face. Hey I just got home. Those guys are exhausting. I’m going to get changed then I’ll Skype you?

I’m waiting for a pizza to arrive and breadsticks :) I’m calling it now. You’re going to pass out before the fifth inning.

Pizza and breadsticks? I’m jealous. I wish I had that tonight. But I can’t complain with steak :) No way! All nine innings I’ll be awake.

I couldn’t help but laugh. You passed out in the bottom of the sixth last time and you weren’t even tired ;)

The buzzer to our apartment echoed throughout the place. I put my phone down and wondered over to the machine to let the pizza guy up. I knew it wasn’t the healthiest choice considering the workout that Danielle and I did today, but it couldn’t be as bad the likely amount of drinking that she was going to be doing tonight. Maybe that’s why she suggested stairs today.

After putting the pizza and breadsticks on the island, I picked up my phone. I’m determined this game. Make it fair. You lie in your bed and watch the game too. Then we’ll see who stays awake the longest.

My eyes widened. Every time Logan and I watched a west coast game together, I was always in the living room and he was always in his room. Not once have I been in my bedroom. It just never happened that way, especially with the time difference. Even with the game where he woke me up for the east coast afternoon game, I made a conscious effort to carry my laptop out to the living room. The games rarely went late enough for him to see my room and I didn’t think tonight was going to go late enough for that.

He messaged me again. Just do it. I know you’re debating eating pizza in your room. You won’t make a mess unless you’re a disaster when it comes to pizza.

Okay fine. If I make a mess, I’m billing you for the clean up. Plus new bedding that shit’s expensive.

Done :)

Logan knew that I would probably need a couple of minutes to set myself up in my room. I was all ready for us to be Skyping in the living room so I had to move my things around. I got a glass of water along with a plate for my dinner and carried it all into my bedroom. I was suddenly thankful that I cleaned my room the other day and that it wasn’t a complete disaster like it usually was during the school year. I put a towel down on my duvet and put the pizza box on top of it – I didn’t want grease to somehow leak through the box, I was being paranoid that way – I grabbed the remote for my tv and made sure my laptop charger was handy for when I needed to plug it in.

This was definitely going to be a first. Pizza, Skype and baseball all in my room. Oh and talking to Logan too.

Once I had the right channel on, pregame was happening, I crawled over to the head of my double bed and got slightly under the sheets. It felt weird to be dressed the way I was and crawling into bed. I adjusted some pillows so I had something to lean against other than the wall behind me. I stretched out and put my laptop on my lap. My plate of pizza and breadsticks was on the right side and the box of pizza with the remaining breadsticks was on the left. Tonight was a classy night.

As soon as I opened up my laptop, it signed me back into Skype when the internet reconnected. Almost instantly, I had a call to answer. I licked my lips before clicking accept and was greeted with Logan’s smiling face.

“Hey,” he spoke kind of softly but continued to smile. His hair was a slight mess, like he had been tugging on it too much, and he had a dark grey ‘property of the San Jose Sharks’ t-shirt on.

“Hi,” my voice felt shaky and awkward. I didn’t know why, it wasn’t our first time talking face to face via our laptops. I really had no reason to be nervous.

Logan tilted his head to the side. “You straightened your hair.” I nodded suddenly afraid to speak. I didn’t know what he was getting at so I picked up a piece of breadstick and shoved it into my mouth. I wanted an excuse to not talk.

It didn’t matter. He continued. “It looks great. You should straighten it more often. Not that you don’t usually look great. You usually do.”

I could tell that my cheeks were flushing. I swallowed quickly so I could contribute to the awkward road we were going down. “You look good too. I, um, I like the way you have your hair.” I wanted to shake my head at my lame compliment back but refrained. He would see me if I did.

He laughed and ran his hand through it. “It’s kind of a mess right now. It’s getting pretty long. I should probably get it cut soon.”

I shrugged, “Well I like it the way it is.” I took another bite of my breadstick to hopefully finish it off. I hated eating while we were talking, especially when only one of us was doing the eating. “How was your dinner?” I asked between bites.

“Do you really want to hear about my dinner with my idiot friends?” I nodded and attempted to smile while I picked up a piece of pizza. He laughed and shook his head. “Ginner was out for a visit so we met up with some other guys we played in Ottawa with and went to this steakhouse, the Keg, and basically just caught up.”

Logan’s lips curled into a smile then he laughed again. “You have no idea who I’m talking about, right?”

I swallowed and attempted to smile innocently. “No?”

“Ginner was one of my teammates in San Jose up until last year. He got traded to Colorado. We played together for like six years total. He’s one of my good buds.”

“His name is Ginner?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

That made him laugh even louder than before. “No, his name is Jamie. But we call him Ginner. He went out with some of the other guys we played with. I didn’t feel like going out tonight.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Logan, if one of your good friends is in town you should have gone out. You don’t need to sit around and watch baseball with me. They must have been so disappointed that you’re not with them.”

“Emma,” he spoke softly and was staring at me. “I told you. I wanted to watch this game with you. Mostly I wanted to see you but this is going to be a good game too.”

“Did you tell them why you couldn’t go out with them?” I winced. Ultimately my goal was to get to the topic of whether or not his friends gave him shit the way Danielle gave it to me.

He licked his lips and broke eye contact with me. He shifted in his spot before answering me. “I told them I was going home to watch a Giants game. Of course, they know that I’m not really a fan of the west coast teams so they assumed there was something, or should I say someone that I was going home for. I told them to drop it and most of them did.”

“So you got shit for coming home early?” His cheeks darkened slightly, it was hard to tell but somehow I noticed it. “Come on, you can tell me. You know Danielle gave me shit.” She always gave me shit when it came to Logan, especially because nothing was established. According to her, we were coasting and not deciding on anything.

Logan’s eyes flickered around his room and nowhere near the camera on his laptop. He ran a hand over his face and through his hair once more before he answered. “They did… Just the usual stuff. It wasn’t that big of a deal.” I could tell that there was something he was leaving out, but I wasn’t going to push it.

Awkwardness settled in between us. It was something that hasn’t happened since both of us were in San Jose. I continued to eat pizza and focused on the television. The Giants were now up to bat as we had talked through the first pitch and halfway through the first inning.

How the hell was I supposed to get answers as to where the two of us stood when right now, neither of us could speak to the other? There was no way I could bring it up now, especially after the fact that he got embarrassed about what his friends said and didn’t want to tell me how they teased him.

It wasn’t like I couldn’t guess what they may have said to him. The only reason I wanted to know was so I could correct them. If they were implying it was because I was his girlfriend and that I was demanding that he stay home on a Friday night, they couldn’t be more wrong about the situation.

No matter what others thought of us, Logan and I were not dating, as far as I knew anyways.

The only sounds that filled the room were the commentary that was faint from both my television and my laptop. Neither of us were speaking, that is until Logan broke the silence. “Can we, can we just forget that I said that and enjoy each other’s company and the game?” His lips were curled into a slight smile.

I nodded and smiled back at him. “Okay, I think we can do that.”

---

Two and a half hours later, the conversation was slowing down between us and Logan was nearly falling asleep. He would jolt awake as soon as he noticed that he did. The leftover pizza and breadsticks I had were in the fridge. I was now in my pyjamas, despite the fact that it wasn’t even ten at night.

“You look cute in your pyjamas Em,” Logan mumbled with a smile on his face.

My cheeks were darkening yet again. I don’t know how he thought I looked cute in my pyjamas. The only difference from what I was wearing before was that I had no makeup on and my shirt was no longer a V-neck but a loose, baggy t-shirt with SFSU across the chest of it.

It was the top of the eighth inning and the Giants were up by four runs. “You should go to sleep Logan. You keep falling asleep,” I spoke softly so I wouldn’t startle him. I was snuggled into my bed and he was tucked into his. It was adorable how he kept falling asleep but fighting every suggestion to actually go to sleep.

“No,” he shook his head. “It’s just two more innings. I can make it. Just keep talking to me.” His voice was tired and full of sleep. He yawned as soon as he finished speaking.

I smiled at him. “Seriously. You beat your record. It’s okay to go to sleep. It’s almost one in the morning.”

Logan yawned. “Are you trying to get rid of me Emma?”

I shook my head. “No, I just don’t want you to be sleep deprived because of me.”

He chuckled. “You’re worth it.” My eyes widened. “One of these days,” he continued with a lazy smile. “You’re going to be the one that falls asleep first.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, but was distracted by a hit that one of the Giants just made. I nodded and smiled, mostly to myself because of the play, they drove in another run on a sacrifice fly ball. I licked my lips, “Oh really? How are we going to do that with you being three hours ahead?”

“When I’m back in California obviously. You’re going to come over and you’re going to fall asleep first. I’m going to make sure of it.”

Now he was just talking non-sense, but I played along anyways, “Yeah you’re probably right Logan. You can probably make that happen.” I had absolutely no idea how he would or why he would want to, but the guy was half-asleep right now, why argue with him?

“I wish you were here right now.”

My eyes widened once more. I didn’t know what to say and hoped that he didn’t realize what my reaction was. I swallowed nervously in anticipation of what he was going to say next, but it was futile because my mouth had dried right up. I ran my hand through my hair, much like he had done several times tonight, and waited.

Logan continued, “I wish you were here right now because I think you would be good at cuddling. I miss cuddling.” He had a half frown on his lips.

As flattered as I was by his half-asleep statement, I knew I had to take it with a grain of salt. He probably didn’t realize what he was saying right now, so I couldn’t take it seriously. I had to remember that, but I also had to play along with him right now. “I’ve been told I’m pretty good at cuddling,” I grinned as I spoke softly. “I miss cuddling too.”

It was true. I did miss cuddling. I missed being intertwined with someone completely innocently when the goal was to just hold the person close to you and let them know that you cared, in some way or another.

He had a lazy grin on his face. “So we’ll cuddle when I see you next.”

“That sounds good Logan,” I chuckled mostly to myself. He was pretty adorable when he was half-asleep, that’s not to say that he wasn’t when he was awake. His tiredness accentuated certain things about him, such as his apparent need and enjoyment when it came to cuddling. “But right now, I think you should go to sleep.”

“Is the game over? I turned my TV off so I don’t have it on anymore.”

Perfect opportunity for me – the game was in the bottom of the eighth inning – he wasn’t going to miss much and the Giants were up by five runs now. “Yeah, it’s over. The Giants won by five.”

“Emma must be very happy about that,” he grinned proudly.

I giggled. “Yes, she is very happy.”

Logan yawned once more. “I think I need to go to sleep.” I nodded in agreement with him. “Thank you for staying in on a Friday to Skype with me Emma. You’re the best.”

My cheeks were flushing pink once more. “Any time Logan.” And I seriously meant that, whether he got that in his current state or not. I hoped he did.

“So,” he sat up a bit more and stretched. “Goodnight. I will text you at some point soon I’m sure. I don’t seem to go very long without doing that these days…” He started to mumble, mostly to himself but I could hear him. His words didn’t make much sense to me until he continued. “Sweet dreams, have a good sleep Emma.”

“Goodnight Logan,” my voice was soft and just above a whisper. “I’m sure I’ll hear from you soon, or I’ll text you. Have a good sleep and sweet dreams for you too. Oh and don’t forget to move your laptop off your bed before you actually go to sleep, okay?”

He nodded and waved goodbye. I did the same before our conversation ended. Like I suggested to Logan, I closed my laptop and put it on my nightstand so it wasn’t on my bed. It felt like it was a lot later than it actually was in San Francisco. Part of me wanted to go to sleep like Logan was. Or maybe it was the soreness kicking in from earlier today, damn DOMS.

The conversation tonight left a lot of unopened doors and unanswered questions. But the awkwardness that swept over us when anything remotely resembling a question as to what the two of us were – just friends? Something more? – Didn’t make it worth it in the end. I didn’t like the uncomfortable feelings between us. That wasn’t how we were. Right now, we are just friends who are mostly open and honest with each other – despite the fact that both of us are attracted to the other. Right now, in the middle of summer when we are 2500 miles apart, it didn’t make sense to complicate things. Everything is fine the way it is.